Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital content, and more specifically, to managing access to and protecting digital content.
Background
The delivery, storage, and consumption of digital video content continue to rapidly increase. The video content may be in different formats for the various devices used. For example, content may be stored on a digital video recorder (DVR) in a high-definition resolution that has a correspondingly high bitrate. The content may then be played on a smart phone that lacks the ability to display the content in high-definition format or lacks the ability to receive that data at the correspondingly high bitrate. The gap between the high-definition format and the abilities of the smart phone may be bridged by transcoding the video to a lower definition resolution and lower bitrate at the DVR before streaming the content to the smart phone for display. A user may be authorized to store, distribute, or display different video content at different times, for different numbers of times, in different formats, and on different devices, for example, as limited by the owners of the video content. Allowing many devices to be used while maintaining rights control is difficult. Communications over multiple types of channels, including asymmetric channels, increases the difficulty of maintaining rights control.